The 'post-hardcore' London trio tell us about their latest release 'Endless Now' before they embark on their tour

Last year saw the emergence of London-based Male Bonding, mixing 80s post-hardcore with a shoegaze sentiment to relay the simple melodic hooks that formulate their sound. After touring their debut 'Nothing Hurts' relentlessly, the band since have grown into themselves. Their forthcoming album 'Endless Now' hitting Sub Pop on 5th September, was produced by notorious 90s indie revivalist John Agnello who worked with Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth and Kurt Vile. We speak to vocalist and guitarist John Webb to find out what the trio have in store for the new release.

Dazed Digital: How have you developed as a band since the release of your debut record Nothing Hurts?John Webb: I guess we played loads of shows. We toured for like 6 or 7 months last year so I guess its just through playing together so much and we’ve lived together for years as well so it’s kind of a natural progression.

DD: Do you still maintain a distinct 1980s/90s underground influence to your sound or are you looking to move away from these roots?John Webb: No it’s not a conscious thing. I grew up in the 90s listening to Nirvana and stuff like that. I think it’s just a by-product of growing up especially in that era. Like when you have those first experiences such as getting drunk, getting dumped or whatever that was the era when I was going through that stuff. I guess it’s a pretty important part that’s become ingrained in me, but it’s not a conscious thing. It’s not like we said lets sound as if we’re from the 90’s its just music we make.

DD: How was recording your forthcoming album Endless different this time round?John Webb: It was a different experience to the first one, we had longer to do it and the producer that we went with he’s pretty well respected. He’s worked with loads of bands like Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr and Kurt Vile. But yeah it was really good, different from the first one, more thought about just the way we wanted really.

DD: What can listeners expect to hear?John Webb: It’s probably a bit less frantic than the first record and a bit more produced. But yeah its just guitar music and guitar song, it’s not going to change your life or anything and it’s not incredibly different in style to the first album because we still maintain our sensibilities. We’ve developed though just through as a result of being in a band more or less full-time.

DD: Can you tell us about any plans you have after the release?John Webb: We’re just touring really. We start our tour on Saturday and we’re pretty much away until November and then we’ll see what happens after that really. We’ll probably start the whole process over again and do loads more touring. It’s kind of all we know.